Gene Reynolds (Louisiana politician)

Harlie Eugene Reynolds, known as Gene Reynolds (born December 28, 1950), is a retired educator in Dubberly, Louisiana, who is a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from District 10 (Webster Parish and one precinct from Bossier Parish).

Background

A native of Shreveport, Reynolds is one of six children of the late Harlie Reynolds and Elizabeth Reynolds, since Elizabeth Woods. He was reared in the lower-middle-class neighborhood known as Cedar Grove. In 1968, he graduated from Woodlawn High School in Shreveport. After his graduation, his parents relocated to Ringgold in Bienville Parish, where he met his future wife, the former Martha Nell Moore. Thereafter, Reynolds worked in industry but returned to school and graduated in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. He subsequently obtained graduate credentials from Louisiana Tech in 1982 and 1992. Gene and Martha Reynolds were employed for nearly three decades by the Webster Parish School Board. From 1994 to 1998, he was principal in Sarepta and later as principal helped to start the combination Lakeside Jr. High and High School south of Sibley. In the aftermath of Hurricane Rita in 2005, the Reynoldses temporarily relocated to Cameron Parish in southwestern Louisiana. They returned in 2010 to Webster Parish to reside in Dubberly near their son, Dustin, and his family.^[1]

Dustin Reynolds, who carries no partisan affiliation, was an unsuccessful candidate for Minden city marshal in the December 6, 2014 runoff election in which he faced the incumbent Democrat Jack R. "Randy" Shelley, who led a three-candidate field in the primary election by nearly four hundred votes.^[2]In the second round of balloting, Shelley prevailed with 55.5 percent of the vote.^[3]

Legislative career

Reynolds won the District 10 seat in the general election held on November 19, 2011,^[4] when he defeated the Republican candidate, Jerri Ray de Pingre of Minden, also a former educator, 4,232 (54.7 percent) to 3,508 (45.3 percent).^[5]In 2012, de Pingre was elected to the District 10 seat on the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee.^[6]

Two other Republicans, Gerald Holland, a retired banker from Springhill and Ronnie Lavelle Broughton of Minden, a member of the Webster Parish School Board, had been eliminated in the October 22 nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 22.^[7] Reynolds was endorsed by his predecessor in the office, the term-limited Democrat, Jean Doerge of Minden, who had served since 1998, when she won a special election to succeed her late husband, Representative Everett Doerge. Both Doerges were also educators. Broughton, eliminated in the 2011 primary, had lost the 2007 election to Jean Doerge.^[8]

In the 2012 legislative session, Reynolds voted against proposals to increase the number of charter schools, establish school vouchers and to amend the state's teacher tenure policy.^[4]

In 2013, Reynolds voted for a judicial pay raise, which the legislature approved. He favored the removal of term limits on judges, but that amendment failed in the House. He supported a state law which now requires that women working for the state receive the same pay as men in the same job, something already required under a federal provision in 1963. He voted for surrogacy contracts for couples designating another woman to bear their child, a measure approved by the legislature. Reynolds voted with the House majority to oppose reductions on penalties for possession of marijuana, to prohibit state enforcement of federal firearm regulations on weapon manufacturers, to prohibit the publication of the names of persons with concealed weapon permits. He also voted to authorize lifetime concealed weapon permits.^[4] In all of these votes, Reynolds' positions were identical to those of his Republican colleague from District 9, Rob Shadoin of Ruston.^[9]

The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry rates Reynolds 38 percent since he took office but 67 percent for the 2013 session alone.^[10]

References